


start me up

by Emmar



Category: Bleach, Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy X, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Les Misérables (2012), Naruto, Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-24
Updated: 2015-07-24
Packaged: 2018-04-10 23:38:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 23
Words: 14,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4412369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emmar/pseuds/Emmar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Snippets, beginnings, and silly little pieces of fic that I don't consider plotty enough to be Real Fics. Fandoms vary, brief summaries and warnings at the beginning of each chapter. Vaguely chronologically ordered.</p><p>Index in notes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. sinews of thy heart

**Author's Note:**

> Finally decided I ought to put some of these things up, seeing as they're unlikely to ever be finished.
> 
> 1: Pirates of the Caribbean, Jack/Norrington soulmate AU, James POV  
> 2: Les Mis, psychic wolves AU, Javert POV  
> 3: Bleach, Isshin dies instead of Masaki  
> 4: Harry Potter, fem!Harry, Snape POV  
> 5: Harry Potter, Marauders-era alternate sorting  
> 6: Harry Potter, Snape takes to asking himself 'what would Lily want me to do', Snape POV  
> 7: Harry Potter, Remus cuts ties with Sirius post-Shack incident, Snape POV  
> 8: Harry Potter, the Ministry send out representatives when muggleborns first show signs of magic, Hermione POV  
> 9: Final Fantasy VII, mage!Cloud  
> 10: Harry Potter, Remus & Sirius blood adopt Harry and an orphan Hermione, Remus POV  
> 11: Naruto, Peggy Sue, Kakashi POV  
> 12: Harry Potter, time travel & amnesia, Hermione POV  
> 13: Final Fantasy X, fem!Tidus, Tidus POV  
> 14: Harry Potter, alternate sorting, Harry POV  
> 15: Naruto, time travel & amnesia, Sakura POV  
> 16: Harry Potter, post-epilogue ship-sinking, Harry POV  
> 17: Harry Potter, Harry isn't James' son, Harry POV  
> 18: Harry Potter, parallel universe, Harry POV  
> 19: Harry Potter, trans girl Harry & trio soulmate AU  
> 20: Naruto, Team Seven soulmate AU, Sakura POV  
> 21: Naruto, Team Sharingan AU, Kakashi POV  
> 22: Harry Potter, Peggy Sue, Snape POV  
> 23: Harry Potter, DA galleons as mobile phones, Hermione POV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pirates of the Caribbean. The inevitable soulmate AU! Jack/James, because I have been Sparrington trash from the start, and Will/Elizabeth for beautiful angst (and also bc they're cute).
> 
> I envisioned this as a rewrite of the first film, and James at one point was going to be stabbed during the Dauntless fight wherein he'd inevitably reveal himself to Jack. (Jack's cameo is on his hip. Groves and Gilette were going to be soulmates, too.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired once upon a time by [Cameo](archiveofourown.org/works/619340) by what_alchemy.

James Norrington is not a fool.

Elizabeth isn’t his, he knows. Has known since that first day, so many years ago, when they had pulled William Turner from the sea and stripped him of his sodden clothes and there had been young Elizabeth, irrefutably, indelibly inked above his heart. Moreover, the face on his own skin is as far from Miss Swann’s as it’s possible to be, but it’s a thing he tries not to dwell on.

(He does, however, take particular care to make sure his cravat is worn high enough to cover the top edge of the cameo upon his neck, at all times, and steadfastly ignores the midshipmen’s rumour mill on why said cravat stays stubbornly about his neck even in the tavern.)

Regardless, he asks for her hand, because he’s no fool, and this is his one shot at something close to happiness, curling his long fingers over the soft skin of her forearm, over the profile that isn’t his.

Then Elizabeth topples over the parapet and all his best laid plans, as they so often do, go awry.

\---

“On your feet,” he barks, and the man crouched over Elizabeth looks up, eyes focusing first on the swordpoint as it dips almost imperceptibly and then on his face, and James has never been more glad of the firm grasp he keeps on his emotions.

He somehow stumbles through the next few minutes without making a complete fool of himself, and if he grips the pirate’s wrist a little tighter than necessary, well, there’s nobody who’ll know. His alarm gives him a sharper tongue than usual as he goes through Sparrow’s effects, because not only is his intended soul mate a man, but a pirate, and not just any pirate, at that. No, he had to have the profile of Jack bloody Sparrow on the skin of his neck, didn’t he.

“You are, without doubt,” he manages, “the worst pirate I have ever heard of.”  
“Ah,” Sparrow says, leaning into his personal space, and it’s an effort for James to keep his breathing steady, “but you _have_ heard of me.”

\---

Will Turner has no idea how lucky he is to be so high in Elizabeth’s esteem, because it’s the only thing preventing James from punching him square in the mouth in an attempt to knock some sense into him. Instead he presses his lips together, takes a deep breath, and removes the axe from his chart, resisting the urge to bury it in young Turner’s foot, or some other non-vital body part.

“Do not make the mistake of thinking that you are the only man here who cares for Elizabeth,” he says.

\---

“That’s got to be the best pirate I’ve ever seen.”  
“So it would seem.”


	2. sing for absolution

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Les Mis. A fusion of sorts with A Companion To Wolves, though all you really need to know is some people have psychic connections with _ginormous wolves_. Was going to be Valjean/Javert of a quiet, sweet sort. I had planned to somehow wrap it up with Javert waiting for Valjean as he does in canon, but without the throwing himself off the bridge thing afterwards (because Absolon would sit on him).

They whisper about him, in Toulon, he knows. Such is the price of being the only man in the place with a wolfbrother, not just amongst the guards but the convicts, as well. But they are not so foolish as to whisper where he can hear, where Absolon stalks at his side.

(Absolon always hears, but finds more entertainment in scaring such men out of their wits than wasting the energy on taking offence.)

\---

While he takes pains to distance himself from the convicts as much as possible, Absolon has no such qualms, and frequently relays his impressions (scent-names, rarely - few have the necessary strength of self to make it past the all-pervasive salt air) and occasionally, a deep sense of wrongness, of a man who should not be in this hell.

 _That is not ours to decide_ , he tells his brother, firmly, and ignores the sharp-edged disappointment he gets in return.

\---

Montreuil-sur-Mer is a breath of fresh air, and as he takes his first walk towards the mayor’s office, on the first day of many, his brother is practically gamboling at his side.

 _Like a puppy_ , he thinks, with amusement curling at the edges, and Absolon barks happily at him, once, startling some few passersby. They will get used to him, to them both. (He hopes.)

The mayor isn’t present when Javert arrives, which suits him down to the ground, because it gives him a moment to give his brother a serious talking to on the nature of propriety and perception that boils down to _please wait until he knows us better before you decide to embarrass me_.

(It doesn’t make much of a difference, all told.)

When the mayor finally arrives, Javert speaks before the man is fully in the room.

“Monsieur le Maire,” he starts, and then cuts off suddenly, because Absolon has trotted up to the man, casual as you please, and sniffed at him. It isn’t the scent so much that stuns him (though it does) as the overwhelming sense of childlike glee that comes on its heels, and Javert turns and looks his brother straight in his bright gold eyes and says aloud, “No.”

Man and wolf stare one another down for a long moment before the silence is broken.

“Inspector?” Madeleine - _apples and woodsmoke and sea salt_ \- _Jean Valjean_ says, and Javert turns back to face him sharply. “Is everything quite alright?”

“Apologies, sir,” Javert manages, gritting his teeth, as Absolon wanders back over and butts his head against Javert’s hip, feeling far too pleased with himself. _Stop that at once_ , he thinks, and his brother ignores him, as per usual. “For a moment, you reminded me of a man I once knew.”

That, at least, is not entirely a lie.

(Monsieur Madeleine is nothing like Jean Valjean, and Javert wants to think it all a grand trick, but all he gets from Absolon is an enduring sense of _I told you so_.)

\---

He waits, and he watches, because a man who is once a criminal is always a criminal, and Valjean will slip up sooner or later, he is sure.

Except he doesn’t, and it is equal parts confusing and frustrating.

He writes a letter anyway, aware that it is his word against, for all intents and purposes, a much-beloved mayor’s, and Absolon growls at him the whole time. It is a miserable fortnight before the return letter arrives and his brother deigns to suffer his company again.

\---

(It all goes downhill swiftly from there.)

\---

“Three days, for the love of God! Then I am yours.”  
“Do you think me a fool?”

\---

The convict flees across the countryside, and the inspector follows.

(This is a lie. Javert does not follow Valjean - Absolon does. And where Absolon goes, Javert goes also.)

\---

He can practically smell the fear on the child as Valjean approaches her, although most of it disappears when he turns that ridiculously charming smile on her and calls her _mademoiselle_.

And then, of all the things to happen, she stands on her toes and looks over Valjean’s shoulder, around the little clearing with the well, and asks, “Where is the other man with you?”

Valjean blinks, once, clearly confused, and Javert tangles his hand in Absolon’s ruff, startled.

“There is no-one with me,” Valjean says.  
“Ambrose says he smells like something-- warm.”

Ah, they are made, then. Javert sighs softly and steps out of the cover of the trees and says, ignoring Valjean’s noise of alarm, “And where is Ambrose, little sister?”

He doubly ignores the easy way the endearment falls from his tongue, because he had not meant to say it at all. The girl smiles up at him, apparently far more at ease than she was with Valjean - and the reason is obvious when a dark shape tumbles out of the trees on the other side of the clearing and stops beside her.

A wolf.

But a puppy, only, still small enough to be mistaken for a large breed of dog, perhaps. It - he - ambles closer to them and sniffs at Javert without hesitation, and Absolon takes two large steps to do the same with the girl.

 _Fresh snow and lilacs_ , Absolon passes to him, and he knows the puppy will be telling the girl of him, a more specific _boot leather and cinnamon and nutmeg_ than their first impression. Then the wolves touch noses briefly, and he gets _pine needles_ and an as-yet-unformed sort of feeling.

And then, a strange echo of Absolon’s _gunpowder and tar and salt_ , and he blinks, shakes it off.

“Have you come to take me away?” the girl - Cosette - asks.  
“Not I,” Javert replies, “nor Absolon.”

The implication is enough for a child as smart as her to pick up.

“But you, sir?” she asks, turning to Valjean, and he smiles at her once more.  
“I have,” he replies, then darts a glance at Javert, ill at ease.

Absolon presses the new scent-names on him again, and then Valjean’s, and a feeling of security and safety and _home_ that Javert finds he cannot deny.

“I will go about my business, M. Madeleine,” he says, quite deliberately, “and you will go about yours, I am sure.”

\---

Javert’s transfer to Paris has absolutely nothing to do with the smells of freshly laid snow and lilacs, of apples and woodsmoke and salt air, of pine needles, that he can’t quite shake, and the distant sense of a girl and wolf curled up together in a carriage.

Nothing at all.

\---

It takes perhaps eighteen months before he reaches the point of such exasperation that he speaks to Absolon aloud. They are patrolling, and when the route takes them along the Rue Plumet, Absolon pushes that never-quite-forgotten conflagration of scent-names on him, and sits down quite pointedly in front of a gate.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he says, and Absolon just looks at him. “ _Absolon_.”

His brother just stares him down for a long moment, and Javert snarls, sounding more like a wolf than a man himself, and stalks over to the gate. It is at that exact moment that two figures barrel out of the house beyond the gate and into the garden, one gangly and dark-furred, and one presumably just as gangly, hidden underneath the current fashion for young women.

“Good morning, Inspector!” the girl calls out, as she reaches the gate and drops to her knees to thrust a hand through the bars and scratch Absolon’s ears.

“Good morning, Mademoiselle Fauchelevent,” he replies, because irritation with his brother is no reason for rudeness, then crouches down to scratch the puppy’s ears (although he is not so much a puppy now, a year and a half on) and then as said puppy tries to stick his head through a gap in the gate, mutters, “you’ll get stuck, Ambrose, and then what shall you do?”  
“Oh, it’s becoming rather a habit of his, actually,” Cosette tells him cheerfully, grabbing her wolfbrother by the scruff of his neck and hauling him back with a smile. “Papa has to rescue him. I think that’s half the reason he does it.”  
“Your father,” strange, how it doesn’t feel strange at all to be saying that, “never seemed much at ease with wolves before.”

Cosette just smiles, and doesn’t say anything about how that probably has more to do with the men who are brothers to wolves than the wolves themselves.

(Man, singular, perhaps.)

\---

And so it goes.

Their route takes them past the house several times a week, and after the first few times, Cosette and Ambrose are waiting for them by the gate. There isn’t much to talk about, but somehow, they manage.

He sees Valjean often, but they do not speak.

\---

It is obvious from the start that this revolution will end badly.

Javert goes anyway, to see these schoolboys at their deadly play, and is still somehow surprised that he is found out, though he shouldn’t be.

 _Go_ , he thinks urgently to Absolon, and for once his brother does as he’s told, but in the instant before, he catches the scent of the leader of these boys, _hot blood and cold iron_ and Javert chokes on the sudden taste of copper at the back of his throat, and that second of distraction is enough.

Absolon will be safe, at least.

\---

He comes to to the low murmur of voices - the students, of course, and their boy-king and his konigenwolf - though he can’t muster the strength to open his eyes.

And then there is another voice, familiar, “Give me the spy,” and he almost laughs, and thinks that he has never been more glad to see Jean Valjean in his life.

“The man of mercy comes again,” he murmurs, as Valjean drags him to his feet by his collar and then out of the cafe into the alleyway behind it, but there is no heat in it.  
“It is as well for you,” Valjean tells him, slicing through the bonds at his wrists.  
“I had hoped,” he admits, “that they would see the massed soldiers of the guard and surrender themselves. But...”  
“Not with a leader like that,” Valjean agrees, then hefts his pistol and takes aim to the left of Javert’s head. “Now clear out of here. Absolon must be going mad. No doubt our paths will cross again.”

Javert does not thank him.

\---

He staggers blindly through the streets of Paris, following the distant, worried sense of Absolon in the back of his mind, doesn’t even realise he’s reached the house on Rue Plumet until Absolon barrels into him. He drops to his knees and buries his hands in Absolon’s ruff in the sort of display of affection only socially acceptable for small children, and then as soon as he lets go, Cosette is there, throwing her arms about his neck and embracing him, and he’s too tired to do anything but let her (though whether he’d have let her anyway is another question entirely).

“Are you alright?” she demands, taking his face in her small hands, and he feels like laughing again.  
“I will be,” he promises, getting to his feet. Then a thought hits him and he says, “I should go back. Your father--”  
“Can look after himself,” Cosette tells him, in a tone that brooks no argument, and he holds up his hands in surrender.  
“I will wait for him all the same. I am not such a fool as to wander back into danger I only escaped by his good grace and God’s, I promise you.”


	3. soldier on (only you can do what must be done)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bleach. The one where it's Isshin who dies instead of Masaki, and she talks Ryuuken into marrying her to give the kids a proper family unit. Written whilst the Turn Back the Pendulum arc was still being published.

On the seventeenth of June, it rains, and a man dies protecting his son.

\---

“The children deserve a father,” she says.  
“Uryuu deserves a mother,” she says.

How can he argue with that?

\---

They have the first argument of their marriage when she says, “I want to raise them as Quincies.”  
“Because that’s worked out so well for Uryuu so far,” he retorts, voice sharper than he intends it.  
“Ryuuken, please.”  
“ _No_ , Masaki. I put that all aside.”  
“And if they can see Hollows? If Hollows are attracted to their reiatsu and they can’t defend themselves? What _then_?”

He’s silent for a moment, lips pressed into a thin line, and then he sighs and says, “Fine.”

“Thank you,” she says, and kisses him gently.

(It’s not much of an argument, all told.)

\---

The boys don’t get on well at first. Not at all.

They snipe and they bicker and the only reason it doesn’t come to blows is because Uryuu isn’t the type. (Ichigo is, but he never starts fights. Only ends them.)

Then, just after Tanabata, everything changes. They go from introducing each other as stepbrothers to introducing themselves as _twins_.

Masaki and Ryuuken never do find out why.

(All there is to say is that it involved a Hollow, and getting the girls somewhere safe, and creating a distraction until the local shinigami showed up.)

\---

At thirteen, Ichigo says _why don’t you get contacts_ , and at fourteen, Uryuu says _you should grow your hair out_.

Ichigo says _if anyone picks on Yuzu, you kick their ass, okay?_ and Uryuu says _don’t let Karin get into too many fights, okay?_

\---

“That Ishida boy,” the teachers say. “Why can’t he be more like his brother?”

Except Ichigo is more like his brother than they know, he’s just-- louder. He can’t really help it, can he, if people pick fights with him?

He can help letting his parents know, though, which is how he ends up sat on the counter in the boys’ bathroom at school trying to stitch up a ripped seam in his shirt. He thinks he’s got it, maybe - Mom probably won’t notice, at least, and Ryuuken is always too busy with work to pay _that_ much attention. The girls wouldn’t know either way, but Uryuu--

“Oh, for God’s sake, just give it here.”

Speak of the devil, Ichigo thinks, and sighs, dutifully holding out the shirt. Uryuu takes it, making a tutting noise in the back of his throat, and starts to unpick all of Ichigo’s careful stitches.

“Uryuu!”  
“Ichigo,” his brother returns in the same tone. “Not that it’s going to make a shred of difference,” he adds, needle already flashing in the harsh fluorescence of the overhead lights.  
“What?”  
“Take a look in the mirror, big brother.”

Ichigo frowns, because he _had_ looked in the mirror when he’d come in, and he’d looked _fine_. He turns to look at himself again anyway, and says, “Oh.”

“Yes, _oh_ ,” Uryuu says, sighing as he offers up the good-as-new shirt.  
“I didn’t think it was going to bruise,” Ichigo admits, shrugging his shirt back on and buttoning it as he leans forward and narrows his eyes at his rapidly-forming black eye.  
“You never do.”  
“It didn’t hurt that much!”

Uryuu just hmms quietly, and then after a moment hands Ichigo his blazer and says, “You should ask Father to help you with reiatsu suppression again, I could feel you from the other side of the building.”


	4. so many things unclear, so many things unknown

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry Potter. The one where Harry is a girl, Petunia is less awful, Snape is confused and angry about it, and Dumbledore is a crafty bastard. My Snape is never terribly similar to his canon self, but [shrug emoji].

_I need you to accompany a muggleborn to Diagon Alley_ , Albus had said. _Just the one_ , he’d said.

And Severus, like a fool, had agreed, which was how he came to be strolling down Privet Drive, looking for number four. At least, he told himself, the headmaster hadn’t sent Hagrid. God only knew how a muggleborn would take that.

Ah, and here was number four, with a neat little garden just like every other house on the street. He stepped up to the door, and as he raised a hand to knock, it opened. He blinked once, looking down at the young girl with the dark auburn hair who had opened it.

“Miss Gardenia Evans, I presume?” he asked, all the while telling himself that red hair wasn’t uncommon, nor the surname Evans.

After a brief hesitation, the girl nodded.

“May I speak with your parents?”  
“I’ll go get her,” the girl said, and disappeared into what was almost certainly the living room. She returned a moment later trailed by a thin woman that Severus recognised immediately. Something shattered on the first floor of the house, and the girl flinched and said, “Sorry!”

“No,” Severus managed after a moment, “that was me. My apologies, Petunia.” Because there was no doubting that the woman before him was Petunia Evans.

“What are you doing here, Snape?” she asked, sounding less venomous than he had expected.  
“I teach at Hogwarts. I’m here to escort your daughter--”  
“Niece.”

Something else exploded, and Severus cursed himself - his magic hadn’t been this out of control since he was a child. And then he cursed Albus Dumbledore, too, for good measure, for hiding James and Lily Potter’s child so effectively, allowing the world to believe she had died with her parents that fateful Halloween night.

“Your niece, to Diagon Alley,” he finished.  
“I was going to go myself,” the girl piped up from where she had sat on the bottom stair.

Severus transferred his gaze to her, and really looked, knowing what he now did. She looked an awful lot like her mother - the same shaped face, the same stubborn tilt to her chin - but her father was in evidence as well, by the darker shade of her hair and the clear hazel of her eyes.

“And just how were you going to accomplish that?” he asked, not unkindly.  
“Aunt Petunia told me about the Leaky Cauldron, and I was going to get a bus.”  
“To London? Alone?”  
“Yes. I’ve gone before. Well, not by myself, but I could. So I was gonna.”

Severus raised his eyebrows and, after a moment, said, “Well, now you shan’t have to. And my way is much swifter than the bus.”  
“Is it magic?”  
“It is,” he said, and then turned to Petunia and said, “I wouldn’t have thought you’d have told her.”  
“Yes, well, when she turned her teacher’s hair blue, I thought it was best,” she replied, not looking best pleased about it.

“It was an accident!” the child protested, red right to the roots of her hair.  
“That is why you must attend Hogwarts, Miss Evans,” Severus told her, “in order to control your magic. Speaking of,” he added, looking briefly abashed, “if you collect the pieces of whatever I destroyed, Petunia, I’ll repair them for you when we return.”


	5. i'm gonna raise the stakes (i'm gonna smoke you out)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry Potter. Lily, Remus and Severus all sort into Ravenclaw. Eventually, was going to be Severus/Lily/Remus. Lily was going to take over the world, probably, or at least piss off most of the purebloods whilst smiling in their faces.

“Promise me,” she says, on the twenty-fourth of August. “No matter what, we’ll be in the same house. Promise me, Sev.”

And how could he ever do otherwise?

\---

 _Aren’t you a smart one_ , the Sorting Hat whispers in her ear. _Courageous, too, no doubt about it. But this ambition of yours, my girl, there’s only one place for it..._

And Lily thinks, _No, thank you. Ravenclaw, if you don’t mind. Besides, what could be more Slytherin than nobody knowing you’re a Slytherin?_

 _You’re not wrong_ , the Hat murmurs, and then, for the whole hall to hear, “ _RAVENCLAW!_ ”

\---

 _Please, somewhere nobody will take any notice of me_ , Remus Lupin thinks, as hard as he can.

 _My boy, you will_ always _be noticed._

 _Somewhere I can keep my head down, then._ Because if there’s one thing Remus has learnt, it’s the value of keeping his head down and his mouth shut, which certainly rules out Gryffindor, and probably Slytherin, too. And he’s never felt like much of a Hufflepuff.

_Nobody to be loyal to, is the problem there, you know. Still, if you’re sure, it had better be--_

“ _RAVENCLAW!_ ”

\---

 _With Lily_ , Severus thinks, almost before the hat is on his head properly, and then, _please_ , because if nothing else his mother taught him to be polite.

_You’d be a much better fit for Slytherin, you know._

_I made a promise_ , he thinks, and the Hat hums, quiet and thoughtful.

“ _RAVENCLAW!_ ”

\---

A week into lessons, Lily and Severus have a fair grasp on how house politics are falling out, which upper years can be trusted, which fellow firsties to avoid. Friday, Severus nudges Lily with an elbow as they step into the common room, tilts his head towards the scrawny boy sat in the corner with his head in a book (not that it’s an unusual sight). Lily nods, and makes a beeline for him.

“Hullo,” she says, sticking a hand out to shake. “I’m Lily Evans.”

“Um,” the boy says, startled.

“You’re Lupin, right?”  
“Remus Lupin, yes,” he manages, reaching out to shake Lily’s hand, and then Severus’. “Um, please, sit.”

Lily smiles like the sun coming up, and it’s the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

\---

“So, are you ever going to tell us what this big grand plan of yours actually is?” Severus asks that summer, as the three of them stare up at the blue, blue sky from where they lay on the grass in the park ‘round the corner from Lily’s house.  
“I’m going to take over the world,” she says, and neither boy laughs.  
“What do you need us to do?” Remus asks after a moment, voice quiet, and she bestows upon him a smile so bright he fears going blind.

She loves her boys, because they don’t bother asking silly questions like _why_ or _how_ , because those will come later. They just trust in her, and it’s glorious.

(The _why_ is simply this: She’s going to show this bigoted, small-minded community just how powerful a little mudblood girl can be, and she’s going to damn well make them suffer for it, too.)

\---

It takes them all of three weeks into the new school year to figure out Remus’ furry little problem. (In their defense, they’d figured out _something_ was wrong early in their first year, they just hadn’t known _what_.)

They don’t tell him they know until the next September, when they’ve completed their animagus transformations and had enough practice with them to be fluid in their transitions. And as it is, they don’t so much tell him as he wakes up the morning after the full moon curled up between a tigress and another wolf. (It’s possible there’s some rather girly screaming involved at that point.)

Lily informs the headmaster of their intentions to join Remus in all the following full moons. She doesn’t tell him how, just that it’s safe - as proven by the previous evening - and that if he denies her, she and Severus will just take to sneaking out, instead, house points be damned. Dumbledore folds like a bad hand of cards, looking troubled all the while.

\---

Severus finds the Room of Requirement just before Christmas of their third year, pacing a seventh-floor hallway and trying to think of somewhere to hide from Potter and Black - he’s quite capable of hexing them into the ground, but the headmaster’s blatant Gryffindor bias makes it an unwise tactic - when a door just materialises in the wall beside him. He stares at it for a moment, until he hears footsteps and the barking laughter of his tormentors, and ducks inside without a second thought.

Then he spends an hour during his free period the next day experimenting, and promptly drags Lily and Remus along. What could be better than a totally private room where they can access any book they like, avoid the chatter of the common room, _and_ get fed? Nothing, they decide. Absolutely nothing.

They look into taking the Trace off their wands - purebloods don’t get slapped by the Underage Wizardry laws, only muggleborns and halfbloods, and isn’t that telling? - but the problem isn’t finding out how to do it, it’s sheer magical power that stands in their way.

“Well,” Remus reasons, “we are only third-years.”

Lily scowls down at the book in front of her, as if personally offended. Severus, wisely, says nothing, just summons up one of the books he was reading before this particular research topic, and goes back to studying NEWT-level Potions.


	6. asphodel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry Potter. The one where Snape takes to asking himself _what would Lily want me to do_ and is a better person for it. Slytherin!Harry, Ravenclaw!Hermione.

Amelia Bones  
Department of Magical Law Enforcement

Madam Bones,

Were you aware that, in the ensuing chaos of the Dark Lord’s defeat, Sirius Black was never given trial, nor, indeed, questioned under Veritaserum? Furthermore, I have reason to believe that Harry Potter’s placement with muggle relatives was in direct contravention of James and Lily Potter’s wills.

Anonymously yours,  
The Half-Blood Prince

\---

Severus,

Have you heard? Someone by the mysterious name of the ‘Half-Blood Prince’ tipped off the DMLE that Sirius hadn’t gone to trial! What an astonishing thing, don’t you think?

Remus

P.S. _Thank you_.

\---

Lupin,

I’m sure I’ve no idea what you’re talking about. Your Wolfsbane will be ready on Thursday. If you arrive before lessons finish, wait in the office. Password will be _belladonna_.

S. Snape

\---

At first glance, the boy looks so much like his father it’s startling. James Potter in miniature. Then Severus looks again and takes in all the ways Harry is not James - his skin is less dark than his father’s was, the shape of his face rounder, his nose more aquiline. Somehow - Severus honestly cannot fathom it, for a moment - he has inherited his mother’s bright green eyes, some fluke of genetics, for all that they are hidden behind a pair of hideous glasses that, from the way he squints, are about as much use as a chocolate fireguard. Still, from the letter he received the night before, it’s only three more days before the correction potion will arrive - one potion Severus unfortunately cannot afford to brew on his paltry teaching salary, though he had offered.

“Potter,” he says, and the boy’s gaze snaps up to him. “What is the difference between monkshood and wolfsbane?”

If the boy gets this wrong, Severus is _never_ letting Black and Lupin hear the end of it. But Potter blinks, once, and then says, “Nothing, sir. They’re the same plant.”

“Five points to Slytherin,” Severus says, and then raises one dark eyebrow as he turns back to the rest of the class and adds, “Well? Why aren’t you writing this down?”

\---

He’s going to have to, he realises as the first years tumble out of his classroom into the dungeon corridor beyond, start pairing the first years cross-House. It was only his own swift intervention that saved young Longbottom and Weasley a stay in the Hospital Wing, and nobody else is much better, save Potter (though it must be inherited, because god knows Black and Lupin can’t brew to save their lives) and Draco Malfoy, who is unfortunately just as much of a spoiled brat as his father ever was but without the good sense to know when to keep his mouth shut. Well, the first time the boy uses the word _mudblood_ in Severus’ hearing he’s going to be in for a shock.

At least he has the Hufflepuff-Ravenclaw class after lunch, although from what he’s heard from the rest of the staff, he’s going to have to give Miss Granger a thorough talking to about when it is and is not appropriate to raise one’s hand to answer a question, and probably the speech about how she does not necessarily need to prove herself quite so much, being a muggleborn - God knows Filius never realises that’s what the problem is with some of them.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry Potter. The one where Remus makes his displeasure _very well known_ after the Shrieking Shack incident. Would have eventually included Remus  & Severus communication primarily via letter, a Sev & Lily reconcilliation, and probably Severus making the choice to join the Death Eaters specifically in order to pass information (though he doesn't trust Dumbledore as far as he can throw him).

When Severus woke, it took him a moment to remember where he was, and why, but staring up at the white tiled ceiling of the Hospital Wing gave him his answer. Black. Potter. _Lupin_. A lot of things that had previously made little sense fell into place.

The door to the Hospital Wing opened quietly, and in swaggered Black, who had doubtless been punished not at all. Lupin must still be abed after the full moon, Severus reasoned. Just as Black passed a screen behind which must have been Lupin’s bed, there was a thump, a jingle of coins and a startled exclamation.  
“What’s this?” Black asked, sounding bewildered.  
“Your thirty pieces of silver,” Lupin snarled, in a tone Severus had never heard him use before. “Now get out of my sight.”  
“Remus--”  
“ _Out_!”

Black backed away, back out into Severus’ line of sight, staring down at a moneybag and rubbing idly at his chest, frowning. Obviously, he had no idea whatsoever of the significance, the symbolism of the money in his hand.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry Potter. A primarily worldbuild-y snippet, based on the idea that the Ministry send out representatives as soon as muggleborn or raised children first show signs of magic, and that child is then assigned a pureblood sponsor, who educates them in the basics of the magical world, and more importantly, in etiquette and politics.

“So,” Hermione says, “what house do you want to be in?”

Across from her, Ron Weasley says, “Gryffindor, for me. My whole family’s been Gryffindors. Imagine if they put me in Slytherin--”

Harry makes a noise of disgust and Ron blinks at him. “You’re just like Malfoy. _Imagine being in Hufflepuff, I think I’d leave, wouldn’t you?_ My sponsor was a Slytherin, you know, and she’s the nicest woman I’ve ever met.”  
“But mate, they’re all--”  
“Get out.”  
“Harry--”  
“ _Out_ ,” Harry says again, expression flat and cold. “And I don’t remember giving you permission to call me by my given name.”

Ron leaves, bewildered, and as the door shuts behind him Harry sighs like a huge weight has dropped off his shoulders.

“Who’s your sponsor?” Hermione asks after a moment, drawing her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around them.  
“Andromeda Tonks.”  
“That’s not one of the Noble and Most Ancient, is it?”  
“She was born a Black - her husband, Ted, he’s muggle born.”  
“Oh!” Hermione says. “Me, too. I’m so glad the sponsoring system’s there, you know, I can’t imagine coming to Hogwarts only knowing what I could find out from _Hogwarts, A History_.”

Unexpectedly, Harry grins. “Tell me about it. If it weren’t for Andromeda, I’d know even less than you.”  
“But you’re--”  
“The Boy-Who-Lived, I know. But my muggle relatives-- my aunt had a falling out with my mum when they were younger, you know, and she doesn’t like magic. She had a flaming row with the ministry rep the first time I did magic, said she wasn’t paying for me to go to some _freak school_.”  
“You’re _joking_.”  
“Nope. But my tuition’s been paid for since before I was born, apparently, so she didn’t have any other arguments. So... here I am.”  
“Here you are,” Hermione agreed.

“So,” Harry says after a moment, “what house do _you_ want to be in?”  
“Ravenclaw,” Hermione tells him without missing a beat. “I think that’s where I’d be best. I have the ambition for Slytherin, I suppose, but not the cunning, and I don’t really think I’m much of a Gryffindor. They all seem a little--”  
“Reckless?”  
“Well, yes.”


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Final Fantasy VII. I wanted to write something where Cloud is proficient with magic from a very young age, and perhaps goes to join SOLDIER as a mage.

When he is eight, Cloud Strife falls into a mako pool.

Nibelheim, of course, has little in the way of medical care and his mother has little in the way of gil to pay for it anyway. So she does the only thing she can; she waits, and she prays.

When he opens his eyes a week later, they’re lit from within, shining like the sky, and he can hear his mother begin to cry. His dip hasn’t changed him much - he’s a little quieter, maybe, but what worries his mother is how he wants to go _back_ , wants to explore the mountain caves. He’s adamant about it, and no matter how dangerous she tells him it is, he still wants to go. And there is, after all, no way she can really stop him, though not for lack of trying. He goes anyway, disappearing from the house at first light and returning late in the evening, just before sunset. She doesn’t ask what he does, and he doesn’t tell her.

When he is eleven, Cloud Strife finds his first piece of materia.

The mako fountain is a favourite place of his, and he’s been watching it coalesce for months.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry Potter. I combined the old 'Sirius and Remus raise Harry' cliche with the 'blood adoption' one. They already have plans to blood adopt Hermione (who they've adopted, legally, from a muggle group home, because her parents died in some non-specific way I couldn't be bothered to think of). They were originally planning to name her Cassiopeia. And yes, Harry is officially Horcrux-free.

“Remus, set it up, I’m on the way home plus one.”

The shining silver wolf fades away into nothing and Remus Lupin keeps on staring. _Plus one_ , he thinks, _what the hell is he playing at?_ Because there’s only one reason Sirius would be coming home plus one and request that he _set it up_ , and that-- That doesn’t even bear thinking about. But there’s no other explanation, so he does as he’s asked - lays out the clay bowl and the bone knife and then paces back and forth in front of the crib until the baby starts to cry.

“Shh,” he murmurs, reaching down to pick up the baby - _their_ baby, officially, as of yesterday - and smooths down her wild bushy hair, laying her gently against his shoulder and swaying until she drifts back off to sleep.

Of course, that lasts only as long as it takes for Sirius to slam the front door open and then just as soon slam it shut again, and then he can hear _two_ babies wailing.

“Sirius, what the _hell_ \--”  
“Peter,” Sirius gasps out, “we switched to Peter and he gave them up, Remus, _he betrayed them_.”  
“So that is Harry.”  
“Yeah. Yeah, it is.”  
“So why all--”  
“Hagrid wanted to take him. Said it was on Dumbledore’s orders.”  
“ _What_ ,” says Remus, the wolf in him rising, snarling, because Harry is family, Harry is _pack_ , what right does Albus Dumbledore have--  
“That’s why. We have to do it. Right now, before Dumbledore finds out and comes to find us. It’ll be too late after it’s done for him to change anything.”  
“Alright,” says Remus, “alright. We’ll need to pick another name, obviously, but doubling the ingredients for the ritual is easy enough.”

Remus lays their first soon-to-be-renamed child down on the table beside the bowl and the knife, and Sirius lays Harry down on the other side, and the two of them draw their wands and then, carefully, draw blood from the babies, just enough to wet the bottom of the clay bowl. Then they turn to each other and, one at a time, draw the bone knife across each other’s hands, blood pooling in the bowl.

“Right,” Sirius says, dipping his thumb into the bowl, “how about Castor and Pollux? Then she’ll still be a Cassie, just like we planned?”  
“You Blacks and your stars,” Remus mutters, a smile twitching at his lips despite himself. “I’ll do her, you do him, then we’ll swap.”  
“Yeah, okay.”

Remus gives him a nod and dips his own thumb into the blood, then turns back to the grumbling baby and smiles down at her.

“I, Remus John Lupin, claim this child, Castor Lily Black, as my daughter by blood and magic, to shelter her from harm and to clear her path to greatness,” he intones, drawing the rune for strength over her heart with the blood on his thumb. Without speaking, he and Sirius step around each other and wet their thumbs once more.

“I, Remus John Lupin, claim this child, Pollux James Black, as my son by blood and magic, to teach him all I know and to clear his path to greatness,” he says, and this time draws the rune for intelligence on Harry’s forehead, right beneath the ugly lightning bolt wound. They’ll have to have that looked at soon, he thinks idly.

Finally, he and Sirius turn to face each other, and carefully draw the rune for unity on each others’ left palms, the ones untouched by the knife, and speak together.

“We claim these children as our own by blood and magic, never to be torn asunder. So I intend, so let it be done!”

\---

Somewhere near Godric’s Hollow, a spirit screams as one unintentionally-loose soul piece vanishes beyond the veil.

\---

In a castle in Scotland, unnoticed, the names _Hermione Jean Granger_ and _Harry James Potter_ disappear from a magical book, and a quill scratches in _Castor Lily Black_ and _Pollux James Black_ instead.

\---

“Well,” says Sirius, blinking the stars from his eyes, “that was exciting.”

Beside him, leaning heavily against the table, Remus begins to laugh. “Shut up and hand me a baby,” he manages after a moment, and Sirius does, scooping up the newly-dubbed Pollux and depositing him in Remus’ arms before picking up Castor for himself.

She looks-- different. Well, obviously she looks different, that was at least half the point of their plan, but the changes are stunning. Her bushy hair isn’t so bushy now, but a mess of jet-black curls that would instantly proclaim to any pureblood the identity of her family. The sleepy hazel eyes she blinks up at him are definitely Remus’, though, he thinks with a smile. She’s got more of Remus’ face than his, too, though apparently his aristocratic nose has been passed on.

“Here,” he says after a moment, “I’ll swap you.”  
“I think Alice owes us ten galleons,” Remus says, almost out of nowhere, as they trade babies.

“Oh?” Sirius asks, looking over his new son, and thinking that thank Merlin, nobody would ever mistake this child for Harry Potter - his hair is a light brown, a little darker than Remus’, but with the thick texture of the Blacks, and the inquisitive eyes are the same grey as his own.  
“Fourth year, remember, she told you she’d bet your children would be hideous.”  
“Merlin bless your uncanny memory, Moony.”


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Naruto. The inevitable Peggy Sue. Kakashi was going to air out the old Hatake compound (and press-gang Team Seven into doing most of it, of course) and then force some domesticity. There were going to be quiet private talks about Itachi, and Minato and Kushina, and not becoming a shinobi for a boy but for yourself, and all sorts of lovely family things.

Kakashi slowly, laboriously, blinks his eyes open to the ever-familiar sight of the ceiling of Konoha Hospital.

Which is odd, because the hospital has been a pile of rubble for almost a week.

There’s the sound of movement nearby, and someone says, “Oh, thank goodness you’re awake, Hound-san!”

Nobody’s called him _Hound-san_ for years. In fact, everyone that might have is dead by now. He’s either hallucinating or in a genjutsu, he thinks. By the time the door opens again, he’s sitting up in bed, and doesn’t even have to think about snapping his hands up into the right seal and barking, “ _Kai_!”

Sarutobi Hiruzen blinks at him from under his hat as he takes a seat, doesn’t even flinch when Kakashi opens his sharingan eye, just waits, and after a moment, says, “Satisfied?”

Kakashi makes a noise that is neither affirmative or negative. “What did you need to speak to me about, Hokage-sama?”  
“Ah, straight to the point, Hatake-san. I have a request for you: I would like you to oversee a genin team.”

Definitely a hallucination, Kakashi thinks. Perhaps it’s even a dying dream. He remembers this day clearly - he and the Sandaime Hokage had argued back and forth for hours before he’d finally given in. This time, though, he says, “I suppose I’ll have to eventually.”

This, clearly, is not the answer the Hokage was expecting, but he recovers quickly. “Good,” he says. “Your team will consist of Uchiha Sasuke, Haruno Sakura and Uzumaki Naruto.”

“Sounds troublesome,” Kakashi says, and Sarutobi chuckles.  
“Undoubtedly.”  
“I want free rein with them, Hokage-sama.”  
“Of course.”

Even if this _is_ just a hallucination, it’s still a chance to fix things - because they need fixing, and there’s no doubt in his mind that he failed those three kids. So he’s going to grab this chance with both hands, and he’s not going to let this team fall apart again.

“They will be waiting for you at the academy tomorrow morning. Team Seven.”  
“Thank you, Hokage-sama,” Kakashi says, and Sarutobi gives him a long look as he rises.  
“I would appreciate it if you stayed the night before escaping, Hatake-san. You will want to be at your best for your new team, after all.”  
“Ah, well, we’ll see.”

\---

The first meeting, he leaves as it is; the test, too. The outcome of the test is as he remembers it, as well, and he gives them the same speech as before, focusing his eye on each of them for a long moment as he does. This time, though, he’s going to make sure this first lesson sticks, and he has the Hokage’s permission - in writing, waiting on his doorstep that morning - to do as he pleases with this team.

“Now, there’s something you might not know. As genin, you’re technically adults, but you’re also only twelve, so as your jounin-sensei, I’m what you might call _in loco parentis_. And so,” he says, so cheerful his smile could probably illuminate a dark room, “you are all moving in with me.”

Sasuke and Naruto make identical indignant protests, but it’s Sakura, bless her heart, who digs deep to find the common sense he knows she possesses.

“Sensei,” she says, hesitant but with her chin held high, “my parents--”  
“Have agreed,” he says easily, favouring her with an eye-crinkle. “I spoke with them yesterday evening. And Sasuke and Naruto are both wards of the village, which means the only person who can overrule me is the Hokage himself.”

That shuts the boys up, thank god.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry Potter. Time travel _and_ amnesia! Hermione wakes up not long after Hallowe'en 1981 with a head full of cotton wool. Fun times. I think I originally planned for Hermione to end up raising Harry, though how she'd talk Dumbledore into it I don't know.

Her eyes blink open slowly, to the bright blue sky, and someone says, “Thank god! What’s y’name, love?”

“I don’t know,” she admits, after a moment, voice rough and scratchy. A Shakespearean queen, she thinks, Isabel or Gertrude or Eleanor or-- It’s there, just out of her grasp, somewhere. She drifts out for a while and when she drifts back again, she’s staring up at a stone ceiling and when she turns her head, there’s a man sat in a garish purple armchair.

“Headmaster,” she says, and then frowns, because how does she know that?  
“Do I know you, my dear?” he asks, gentle and polite.  
“No,” she says, “or, you might. I don’t remember much. But you are the headmaster, aren’t you?”  
“I am,” he says. “And I am told you cannot recall your own name. May I ask what you do recall?”  
“I have eleven NEWTs - Transfiguration, Charms, Defence, Potions, Herbology, History of Magic, Astronomy, Ancient Runes, Arithmancy, Muggle Studies and Care of Magical Creatures. All Outstandings.”  
“No Divination?”  
“Divination’s a woolly discipline,” she says, and the wizened old headmaster smiles, like she’s amused him.  
“And what else do you remember?”  
“My best friend is a boy with messy black hair and glasses and he just got married to a beautiful redhead. They had their first baby - he looks just like his father--”  
“But with his mother’s eyes,” finishes the headmaster, sounding infinitely, unknowably sad, and she’s struck with the deep and certain knowledge that something is wrong.  
“Yes,” she says, barely above a whisper.  
“Oh, my dear,” says the headmaster, “I am so very sorry.”


	13. 明朗 (meirou; bright, clear)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Final Fantasy X. Tidus is Tida, and everyone is better for it. Eventually. Was going to be Tida/Yuna(/Rikku, maybe), with waaaaay more Tida & Auron interaction than in canon, because dad!Auron is what I'm here for. (He _definitely_ taught her how to fend off unwanted advances.) Tida would be a lot more magic-focused than Tidus, which would mean more girl interaction, which is always good.

“A gift,” says Auron, “from Jecht.”  
“What are you _talking_ about?” Tida demands, struggling and mostly failing to lift the point of the sword off the ground. There is a _reason_ , damn it, that she’s a center field, and it’s because her upper arm strength is _terrible_. And then there’s no time to talk, because those _things_ are coming at them - she’s not much use at all with a sword she can’t even lift, but she manages to keep from getting anything worse than a couple of scratches whilst Auron takes them out.

As they move forward, Auron presses his lips together and says, “Drop it, there’s no use dragging it around if you can’t carry it.” He doesn’t sound angry, but she can’t figure out how he _does_ sound. His free hand disappears into his coat and then reappears holding a short knife, which he presses into her hand. “Aim for the eyes.”

“Uh,” she says, and then there’s no more time for words because they’re fighting, fighting, fighting, and then--

Then Auron’s hand is tangled in her collar, lifting her up, and she’s scrabbling at his wrist but her hands are covered in thick, black blood and she can’t break his grip and--

“This is it. This is your story. It all begins here.”

\---

When she wakes, staring up at a time-worn stone ceiling, it takes her a moment to get her bearings, to cobble together a thought past _what the hell just happened_ , but when she does she sits up, forearms digging into the rough steps, and scowls down at the waves lapping over her feet. Her jacket is a total loss - ripped and damp inside and covered in black blood and pieces of whatever those things they fought were - so she shucks it off her shoulders and uses the mostly-clean inside to scrub at her hands.

It doesn’t really help.

The knife is, somehow, still in her pocket, which is oddly reassuring. She’s not sure how much use it’s going to be against, well, _anything_ , but it’s better than bare-knuckle fighting, that’s for sure. The handful of steps lead up into a huge, round room - with the remains of a campfire in the center. It’s damp and it takes her a while to find enough dry tinder and flint, but soon enough there’s a respectable little blaze crackling away, and she huddles close to it, knife in one hand, just in case.

Which turns out to be for the best when she gets attacked by some kind of monster with _blades for arms_. She dodges and weaves and takes the occasional swipe, but this thing’s hide is _tough_ , too tough for her little knife to cut through - and then the doors explode. A chunk clips the monster in the head, which probably saves her from being cut down in her moment of distraction. One grenade later and the thing tumbles over and then seems to almost _dissolve_ , into a mass of swirling colours - the same way the things she’d fought in Zanarkand had, come to think of it.

She turns to thank the girl in the goggles, who grins back at her - and then one of the guys with guns says something incomprehensible, grabs her by the shoulder, and she reacts without thinking: drives an elbow into his stomach at the same time as she stomps down hard on the top of his foot, then snaps her fist up into his nose, followed, finally, by another elbow, slightly lower down.

(She might not be much use against monsters, but fighting off _men_? That, she can do.)

She turns in a circle, knife at the ready, but all that happens is the girl in the goggles starts to laugh, so hard she doubles over, and says something else that Tida doesn’t understand - but the thugs back off.

“I like you,” says the girl, with a wide grin. “How did you learn to do _that_?”  
“My guardian taught me,” Tida says, shifting her grip on the knife, awkward and uncertain.  
“Your _guardian_? Are you a summoner?”  
“What? My guardian, like, you know, the guy who brought me up after-- after my mom died.”  
“Oh,” says the girl, and then squints at her. “You do know what a summoner is, right?”  
“Nope,” Tida admits, as cheerfully as she can.  
“Man, you must have got too close to Sin. The toxin, you know, it messes with people's’ heads!”  
“Yeah, I guess so.”

Well, it’s as good an excuse as any, she supposes.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry Potter. The one where they're all in different houses, because it would have made the house unity rhetoric actually worth something. Hufflepuff Ron because it sets him apart from his family and, I think, would force him to grow. (The twins later confess the hat wanted them in Ravenclaw and Slytherin, respectively, but they argued it down. Percy probably had to argue for Gryffindor over Slytherin rather stridently, too.)

“Granger, Hermione!”

The girl’s bushy hair disappeared under the ratty old hat and she sat, fidgeting, for a long minute, little dark hands curling and uncurling against the edge of the stool. And then, the hat’s brim opened wide and declared:

“RAVENCLAW!”

She looked pleased, Harry thought; but then she’d said on the train, hadn’t she, Gryffindor or Ravenclaw. Her grey tie shimmered into blue and bronze as she made her way to the Ravenclaw table amid cheers and whistles, and Harry turned his attention back to the sorting hat.

“Longbottom, Neville!” was the next of Harry’s companions to be called, and the hat opened its brim once, and then twice above his nervous, wobbling chin before it called out:

“GRYFFINDOR!”

Unlike Hermione, Neville looked mostly relieved, even if he did manage to get halfway to the red and gold table before the Deputy Headmistress called him back to take the hat off of his head. Harry tuned out again for a long moment until someone nudged him in the ribs, and he realised Professor McGonagall had just called his name - and that was when the whispers started.

“ _The_ Harry Potter?”  
“Where’s he been all these years, d’you know?”

Harry for once was glad of his darker skin, that it hid at least a little the dull flush creeping up his neck as he made his way towards the stool. The hat covered his eyes and then, of all things, _spoke_. Spoke in his head, and whispered about greatness.

 _Not Slytherin_ , he thought, and the hat chuckled in his ear.  
“Whyever not, my lad?”

He didn’t mean to think about it, but he did: Malfoy, in Madam Malkin’s, Malfoy on the train, Malfoy in the entrance hall. The hat hummed, thoughtful, and said, “I daresay you’d do young Malfoy some good in the same house, you know.”  
_What?_ thought Harry, startled and confused both. The hat just chuckled again, and before he could think anything else at it, opened wide and shouted for the whole hall to hear:

“SLYTHERIN!”

He got a brief glimpse of Ron’s wounded expression as he staggered away to the Slytherin table, and wanted to sink into the floor at the hush his sorting had brought over the hall. Then, as he swung his legs over the bench, Malfoy began to clap, and soon the rest of the house joined in, and Harry ducked his head and murmured a quiet thank you.

When the Deputy Headmistress called out, “Weasley, Ronald!” Ron shot one last hurt look in Harry’s direction before the hat obscured his eyes, and it was the longest anyone had sat under it so far. Three redheads at the Gryffindor table - Ron’s brothers, Harry surmised - leant their heads together and began to speak quietly, expressions worried, and then, eventually, the hat opened its brim wide and said:

“HUFFLEPUFF!”

If Harry thought his sorting had shocked people, it was nothing compared to the stunned silence that descended on the hall then. For a long moment Ron looked like he might be sick, but then his chin came up and he swallowed hard and walked to the Hufflepuff table, head held high, and they began to applaud, and Harry put two fingers in his mouth and whistled. Neville started to clap over at the Gryffindor table, followed by Ron’s brothers, and Hermione whistled her appreciation from the Ravenclaws. Harry could see the back of Ron’s neck turn red from where he was sat, and he stifled a grin as his fellow first year Slytherins glared over at him.

It’d be nice, he thought, to have friends in all the other houses.


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Naruto. Time travel amnesia fic, take two. Sakura brings up Naruto, Kakashi grudgingly helps, is horrified when Naruto first calls him Kakashi-ji. (SHOULDN'T I BE KAKASHI-NII AT LEAST he wails, as Sakura laughs.) She tells him about the Kyuubi and Naruto grows up with a weirdly cordial relationship with Kurama.

_This ceiling is familiar_. That’s the first coherent thought in her head, though she can’t say why.

“Ah,” says a voice beside her, “you’re awake. What is your name?”  
“I don’t know,” she admits after a long moment. She doesn’t know _what_ she knows, her entire memory like a scroll someone’s left out in the rain.  
“Well,” says the voice, and it sounds like he’s smiling, “with hair like that your clan is clear, Uzumaki-san. What do you know?”  
“There’s a boy I have to protect. Blonde hair, blue eyes. He’s-- important.”

That’s all she knows for sure, and the name he called her by - Uzumaki - it rings a bell, but she’s not sure if it’s hers. “Uzumaki,” she says, tasting it on her tongue. “I think that’s his name, too.”

“Ah,” says the voice, and there’s a rustle of fabric and then he leans forward and--  
“Hokage-sama.”  
“Good,” he says, and smiles down at her, gentle. “That much you know, at least. But as to this boy you must protect, this blonde Uzumaki… I am afraid to say you may be the only one who can.”

She blinks up at him, and something tickles in the back of her mind, but doesn’t resolve itself. “I don’t understand,” she says eventually.  
“Young Naruto and yourself are now, I am sorry to tell you, the last of the Uzumaki line.”  
“Oh,” she says, voice small. “But doesn’t he have-- there’s a godfather, isn’t there?”  
“He and I-- disagreed on several issues, and he no longer resides in the village. It would be unsafe for Naruto to live anywhere else - but now that you are here, if you are willing…?”  
“I’ll look after him,” she says, mouth moving entirely without permission of her brain. “I-- if that is acceptable, Hokage-sama?”  
“Very much so,” he says, and clasps his hands together. “You will need more than a clan name, however, Uzumaki-san, so if perhaps you could recall…?”  
“A flower name, I think. Grows on trees, fruits.”  
“Sakura, perhaps?”  
“Yes,” she says, testing it in her mind. Uzumaki Sakura. “Yes, I think so.”  
“Then I will arrange a home for you and Naruto, Uzumaki Sakura-san, and you will be free of this hospital bed as soon as the nurses pronounce you fit and healthy.”  
“Thank you, Hokage-sama.”

\---

The nurses are brisk and efficient and something in her whispers, _good_ , though the memory is still out of reach. They let her use the attached bathroom before they discharge her, and it’s all she can do not to scream when she looks in the mirror. Because her hair is _all wrong_. She understands, suddenly, why the Hokage thinks she’s an Uzumaki - her hair is the blood red that is the hallmark of Uzushio’s most prevalent clan. It’s not _right_ , she knows that somehow, but she doesn’t know _why_. It’s supposed to be pink, she thinks, pink like cherry blossoms, like her name. That’s why haha-ue named her that, after all.

The clothes she’s given don’t feel right, either, too loose, too-- civilian. Yes, that’s the word, civilian. Because she’s a ninja, the knowledge deep in her bones. And she has precious people to protect, or _a_ precious person, at least. Her other precious people are-- somewhere else.

The Hokage himself is waiting when she reaches the lobby, a small bundle in his arms, and he smiles as he places it in her arms.

“Hello, Naruto,” she murmurs, and doesn’t say, _I’m sure I remember him older_.

\---

Three days after the Kyuubi attack, an unfamiliar chakra signature knocks on Kakashi’s door, and he answers it mostly because hardly anyone bothers to knock any more.

“Hatake Kakashi-san?”  
“Yes?” he says, wary, because for a moment he’d thought it was Kushina, until he realises that her eyes are a different colour and her face a different shape.  
“You were close with the Hokage and Kushina-san, weren’t you?”  
“Yes,” he says, drawing it out, and the red-haired woman in the doorway smiles, sweet and dangerous, and it takes a lot to keep him from taking a step back.  
“So why is it, Hatake-san, that I am raising their son by myself?”  
“Ah,” he says, and then closes his mouth, because all his protests about duty and the village and the fact that he has no idea how to raise a child pale in the face of this angry, tired woman.  
“I thought so,” she says, and shifts her arms, and that’s when he realises she’s holding him, the child-- Naruto. “He’s asleep,” she says, and the fact that she can read his expressions under the mask is even more terrifying than the prospect of trying to raise a jinchuuriki.  
“You seem to have me at a disadvantage, kunoichi-san,” he says expectantly, and she laughs.  
“Hokage-sama furnished me with a three-bedroom house, in his infinite wisdom,” she says, a seeming non-sequitur, but Kakashi’s eyebrow makes a bid for his hairline.  
“I suppose,” he says, “that Naruto-kun should have some sort of father-figure, even one as unsuitable as me…”  
“An extra pair of hands would be greatly appreciated.”


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry Potter. Because I think the epilogue was horrifically unrealistic, and also Albus Severus is the worst name. I don't think I actually planned to go anywhere with this one.

“So,” Harry says, sat in Hermione’s kitchen, “Ginny and I are getting divorced.”  
“ _Harry_ ,” she says, putting two mugs of tea on the table.  
“It’s just-- we’re not suited, you know?”  
“You didn’t figure that out until you had _three children_?”  
“To be fair, Remus and Lily were twins.”  
“Good grief,” she mutters, sitting in the other chair, “at least Ron and I figured it out before we had children.”  
“We sort of thought they might help?” he offers, tapping his nails against the side of his mug. “I mean, we had James already and we thought, you know, maybe one more try, to see if we could make it work for them, but, well.”

Hermione sighs quietly, both hands wrapped around her own mug, and eventually says, “And what are you going to do about them? The children.”  
“Well, we’re still living together until I can find another place, but then we’re going to share, I guess? I mean, it’s going to be awkward moving them from place to place while the twins are still so little, but we agreed that’s probably the best way to go.”  
“Probably,” Hermione agrees, and he doesn’t think she realises just how much she looks like McGonagall when she presses her lips together like that. “I take it Ginny’s at the Burrow?”  
“Sunday lunch,” Harry agrees, smiling softly. “And then she said something about going out, window shopping. I don’t think she meant actual shopping, you know?”

Hermione looks at him for a moment and then laughs, hand over her mouth, helplessly. “Oh, I definitely know. Does he have her eye on anything special?”  
“Vintage snakeskin,” he murmurs, and she snorts another laugh. “How about you? Any news on the love life front?”  
“I’m meeting Viktor in Hogsmeade this weekend, actually,” she says lightly, sipping at her tea. “Bulgaria are playing a friendly with Scotland and Minerva asked him to drop by as a favour, take a day teaching. I think he sees it as something of a holiday, showing schoolkids how to fly.”  
“Oooh,” Harry says, “ _Viktor_. Well, tell him I said hello, won’t you?”  
“Of course. And you, Harry? Any window shopping of your own going to happen?”  
“I dunno,” he says, shrugging one shoulder. “I never was much one for window shopping, you know that.”  
“No,” she says, “I suppose not. Unless you count all that time in sixth year you spent staring at Malfoy.”

Harry squawks in outrage, and she grins.

“Honestly!” he says, wrinkling his nose. “He was up to something. And while I admit he’s definitely grown into his face, he’s quite happily married to the youngest Greengrass, isn’t he? Asteria?”  
“Astoria,” she corrects absently. “Yes. I hear they’ve got a littl’n, same age as your twins. Scorpius.”  
“Ah, awful pureblood naming schemes strike again,” he murmurs, and catches her eye, and the pair of them start to laugh.  
“You can hardly talk,” she says eventually. “ _James Sirius_ , honestly. I understand you wanted to honour them, Harry, but did Ginny not get a say?”  
“One of Remus’ middle names is Arthur!” he protests, “and Lily’s is Luna; Luna’s always been her friend more than mine, you know that.”  
“I suppose you do have rather a lot of family members to name children after,” she admits, and they share a sad, quiet smile for a moment. “Hagrid was over the moon that you named Remus for him you know. _Remus Rubeus Arthur_. I think he’s embroidering a pillow for his first birthday, you know.”  
“So he says.”


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry Potter. Y'all have read the old 'Harry is actually [character]'s son instead of James Potter's' plot, right? This is not that plot.

Harry comes haring into the kitchen on his birthday and before Sirius can so much as wish him a happy one he says, “I’ve got a letter.”  
“Oh?” says Sirius, sharing a glance across the table with Professor _please, just call me Remus_ Lupin.  
“It, um. Smells nice,” he says lamely, and it does, lavender and rosemary. “And it was just _there_ when I woke up. I dunno how it got here.”  
“Oh?” says Lupin, this time, a little sharper, and takes a deep breath in, and then he begins to cough. “ _Oh_ ,” he says faintly, when he has his breath back.  
“Care to explain, Moony?”  
“I daresay you’ll recognise the handwriting, Pads,” says Lupin, and Harry just frowns at both of them and offers the envelope to Sirius, who promptly drops it.  
“Bloody hell, Remus,” he says, “the _ink’s still wet_.”  
“Magic’s a brilliant thing,” Lupin tells him, dry, and then smiles up at Harry. “Open it. Whatever it is, I suspect we’ll all find it interesting.”

Harry does, and his heart stops at the very first line. He has to clear his throat twice before he can manage reading it aloud:

_Harry, my son,_

_If you are reading this, then I am dead and you are newly fifteen. First of all, happy birthday, my love. Secondly, there are things you need to know: You are not James Potter’s child._

That alone causes a clamour, but Lupin eventually manages to silencio Sirius and motions for Harry to keep going, though he looks rather pale himself.

_In fact, you are not anybody’s child but my own. Over the next month, the glamour on you will begin to fade, and all the contrived resemblance to my husband will fall away. Please, do not think this means he loves you any less for not being his - he could not possibly love you more. The truth is, James can’t have children and we longed so dearly for one, and so I went searching, and - obviously - I found a solution. Though we named you traditionally, know that if I had been able, I would have named you Linden Henry, in **my** family tradition and for my father. Harry’s a fine nickname for Henry, I think._

_In closing, I want to tell you to be careful of Headmaster Dumbledore - he plays games, and I think he finds you a very important piece, although from where I’m sitting you’re still only a baby._

_Again, never doubt that we love you, even in death._

_Your loving mother,_  
_Lily_

“Well,” Sirius says eventually, once eyes have been duly wiped, “you’re shit out of luck for getting any taller, pup.”

There’s a long moment of silence and then Lupin puts his face in his hands and begins to laugh.

“So,” Harry says, and his voice is smaller than he’d like, “you still-- I mean, you don’t mind that I’m not-- not James’ son?”  
“Oh, cub,” says Lupin, reaching across the table to lay a hand on his, “your being James’ son never had anything to do with it.”  
“Not once we met you, all grown up,” Sirius agrees, coming around the table to enfold Harry in a hug. “Prongslet or not, you’re ours, you know.”  
“Oh,” says Harry, and has to swallow, throat tight. “Okay. Good.”

They stay like that for a moment, a little tableau of affection, until Mrs Weasley bustles in and declares, “Good morning! Happy birthday, Harry dear.”  
“Thanks, Mrs Weasley,” he says, and lets Sirius pass him over for one of what he likes to think of as her Mum Hugs. He doesn’t know if his mum would have hugged exactly like this - she hadn’t been quite the same shape as Mrs Weasley, after all - but he likes to think it’d feel the same.


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry Potter. Harry and Hermione escape to an parallel universe. Snape was adopted by the Evans family sometime in his fourth or fifth year, he never said The Thing, Lily and James eventually got together, Lily yelled Voldemort into putting his soul back together... This was mostly a bit of fluff. There wasn't going to be a plot to speak of, just Harry and Hermione decompressing once they realise they can't go home.

The first thing Harry thinks when he opens his eyes is please, let us have done it, and looking up at Hogwarts, intact, it seems that they have. Then Hermione’s hand clamps down on his wrist and she calls, “ _Ginny_?”

But the woman that turns around to face them isn’t Ginny. Isn’t even close to Ginny, except her red, red hair. Harry sits down on the soft ground with a thump, and Hermione goes with him, face pale. “Oh my god,” Hermione says quietly, and then, stronger, “what year is it?”

“Nineteen ninety-eight,” says an oddly familiar voice, and when Harry finally looks away from the red-haired woman, he thinks, _oh_. Because this man could almost be Severus Snape, were it not for the way his dark hair is cut short and neat and his clothes aren’t black and his face isn’t set in a permanent sneer. He’s frowning, in fact, looking genuinely concerned, and he and the woman share a glance. “What are your names?”

“Hermione Granger and Harry Potter,” Hermione tells him, and then-- _then_ the man’s face changes, into a very familiar, Snape-like expression, but the woman just elbows him in the side.

“You’re being your fifth-year self again,” she mutters, and his face smooths out instantly, and then he really cements himself as not being Snape by muttering a quiet apology. The woman turns back to the two of them, sitting on the damp grass, and says, “Well, it looks like there’s a lot to discuss. Come into the castle and we’ll find the Headmistress.”  
“Headmistress?” Hermione asks, voice thin.  
“Headmistress McGonagall, of course,” says the woman, eyebrows raised. “Now, where exactly are you two from?”  
“It’s a very long story,” Harry manages, and it takes a lot to stop himself from adding, _Mum_.

They don’t have to go far to find the Headmistress - McGonagall is stood in the doorway of the entrance hall, expression foreboding.

“Ah,” she says. “That would certainly explain the wards throwing a fit. Come to my office - you as well, Severus, Lily.”

So it _is_ Snape, Harry thinks, but it’s a distant sort of thought. He doesn’t remember any of the walk to the Headmistress’ office, only sitting down in a comfortable but rather plain armchair. He and Hermione share a long look, and he’s the one who takes a deep breath in and says, “We’re from a parallel universe.”

And then it all comes spilling out, the pair of them talking over each other: How their Horcrux hunt had gone easily, far _too_ easily, until they realised a trap much too late; How Dumbledore’s portrait had revealed Snape to be his man all along, but not until Voldemort had already killed him; How Hermione had found an ancient spell that would take two people to a world like their own but not exactly; How that spell had required a human sacrifice, and so they’d put it out of their minds, until Voldemort’s trap was sprung and Ron was dying anyway.  
“But I didn’t think things would be this different,” Harry admits, and his eyes flick to his mother without thinking. “You’re dead in our world, you know. Sixteen years last Hallowe’en.”  
“Oh?” she says, leaning forward.  
“Well-- that’s when Voldemort attacked, and I got this scar,” he says, lifting his fringe up to show her the lightning bolt, and she goes dead white in an instant.  
“Lily?” Snape says, quiet and solicitous, arm around her shoulders.  
“My god,” she whispers, and puts a hand over her heart. “How?”  
“I don’t know. Professor Dumbledore always said it was your sacrifice.”

Then, of all things, she puts her head in her hands and begins to weep.

“In our world,” Hermione goes on, her eyes fixed on Headmistress McGonagall as Snape fishes a handkerchief out of his pocket and offers it to Harry’s mum, “there was a prophecy. _The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches. Born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies_. That was the half he heard.”  
“There was no such prophecy here. Not to my knowledge,” she adds, darting a glance up at the portrait of Albus Dumbledore, though a much younger one than Harry ever knew, who shakes his head. “Our Dark Lord Voldemort was… vanquished… on Hallowe’en, nineteen eighty-one, just as you say, but it went rather differently, I must imagine.”

“Wait,” Harry says, looking hard at his mother. “If you’re alive here, does that mean my-- is he-- is James Potter alive, too?”  
“James Potter died in seventy-nine,” McGonagall says gently.  
“Oh. And-- Are you sure, about Voldemort? Because, well, he made a lot of horcruxes--”  
“Voldemort is very much dead,” says McGonagall firmly. “It is possible, you know, for a soul to be put back together, if the creator of horcruxes--”  
“Expresses true remorse!” Hermione bursts out, eyes wide. “But _how_?”  
“It’s a rather embarrassing story,” his mum says, with a thin smile. “I don’t actually remember a lot of it - I know I slapped him, full in the face, and there was a certain amount of screaming. I think I said _I hope you don’t kiss your mother with that mouth_ at one point.”

Beside her, Snape chokes on something that might have been a laugh, and then says, “I know that when Black and I arrived, there was very little of the house left, just Lily and a man the Headmistress later identified to us as Tom Riddle. Who is, I believe, near the end of his sentence.”  
  
“I think that may be enough explanations for today,” McGonagall says, looking hard at Harry and Hermione. “Seeing as the two of you have, by your own admission, just come out of a warzone, I think a trip to the Hospital Wing is in order.”


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry Potter. Trio soulmate AU ft trans girl Harry. There really wasn't much actual plot for this.

Harry learns early to pull the long sleeves of her hand-me-down jumpers over her wrists to hide the freakish tattoos scrawled across them. She tries to scrub them away more than once. The first time she puzzles through the untidy scribble on her right wrist and the broad, looping curls on her left, she thinks, _who are you?_

Ron knows deep in his bones that the names are his alone to see, and wears his soft leather cuffs from the day his mother presents them to him. He spends the evenings staring at the names on his wrists, ink dark against the pale, untanned skin, and thinks, _what did I do to get lucky enough for two of you?_

Hermione starts to cover her wrists not long before she starts school, because she knows that the inexplicable scrawls of names bothers her parents. At school, at least, nobody pays enough attention to her to see them, and some days she sits in the library and stares down at the black marks, almost illegible against her dark skin, and thinks only, _why?_


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Naruto. Team Seven soulmate AU, where ninja magic makes your soulmate marks give you weapons, too! Kakashi's soulmate, because I'm predictable as hell, is Gai. It's entirely platonic. Sakura was going to end up with a claw (from Naruto) and a tonfa (from Sasuke). I didn't hammer out anyone else's, except Sakura's mark definitely gives Sasuke a hammer that he absolutely despises using because it's SO NOT NINJA-APPROPRIATE.

The first question their sensei asks, after the disastrous and miraculous bell test, is this:

“So, do any of you have your marks calibrated yet?”

Naruto’s expression is blank with incomprehension, Sasuke’s carefully so. Sakura just shakes her head, touching her fingers to the inside of her elbow where three tomoe swirl, her hip where [naruto’s mark] sits.

The thing about marks is, they’re not just decoration. Not for ninja, anyway. Everyone knows the legend, of course, Sakura had grown up on stories of how soulmates were marked so they might know each other in every life, grown up seeing the rose inked onto the soft skin of the inside of her mother’s knee. Then, in the academy, there had been the lessons about how, if you got the seals done, your mark could be more than just a mark; your mark was, with the seals, something like a storage seal for one specific weapon, a manifestation of the bond between you and your soulmate.

Sakura’s family can’t afford for her to get her mark calibrated, and while she knows she’ll be drawing a paycheck of her own now she’s a genin, she’s never had to be financially responsible before.

“What d’you mean, sensei?”

Somehow, Sakura isn’t surprised Naruto has absolutely no idea what Kakashi-sensei’s talking about. It’s even odds that he slept through or played truant from that lesson, and Sakura lets her focus… not drift, but widen, as their new jounin-sensei recaps it.

“Huh,” says Naruto. “That sounds super cool! So, wait, if you’ve got more than one mark do you get more than one weapon?”

Sakura startles at that, clamps a hand around her elbow, and Sasuke goes very, very still.

“Yes,” says Kakashi-sensei.  
“Have you got a mark weapon thingy?” Naruto says then, and Kakashi-sensei’s eye crinkles up in a smile softer and more genuine than any he’s given them yet.  
“I do,” he says, and touches a finger to the corner of his jaw. There’s a spark, and then he’s holding the most ridiculous weapon Sakura has ever seen.

It’s a naginata, which in itself isn’t something she’d exactly say suits their sensei or what she’s seen of his fighting style, but there’s more than that: It’s covered in _stuff_. The guard is festooned with ribbons and tassels and a dozen bells like the ones they just tried to steal. Sakura doesn’t think she’s ever seen a weapon less suited to a shinobi in her entire life.

Sasuke looks like he wants to set it on fire.

Naruto, on the other hand--

“ _Awesome_!”  
“It’s pretty good,” Kakashi-sensei murmurs, and lets it disappear in a swirl of leaves. “Bright and early tomorrow morning, my adorable little genin, I’ll be taking you to have your marks calibrated, so be here at seven, or I’ll leave without you!”


	21. Chapter 21

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Naruto. Yet another fic where I kill Sasuke. I think I had vaguely plotty plans for this, including Danzo Being Danzo, Ino Being A Teenage Girl And Therefore Tactless, and Team Seven Being A Mess.
> 
> Graphic descriptions of violence lie herein, I suppose.

The ice mirrors shatter and Kakashi’s fist bursts a heart other than the one he intended, but that is the least of his problems.

Sasuke is face down on the damp grass, Naruto beside him, the kyuubi’s chakra lashing like tails, and Sakura is still stood guard over Tazuna.

And then Gato and his thugs show up, and things somehow go from bad to worse. Kakashi, ever the pragmatist, has no problem slitting a few throats whilst Momochi Zabuza, crippled as he is, distracts the bulk of Gato’s forces. Of course, that means he is, himself, distracted when one of the thugs gets hold of Sakura. The girl freezes, eyes wide, but the thug seems more amused intimidating her than preparing to do any real damage.

That’s probably what saves Sakura’s life when she sets off the exploding tag.

After the fact, he has to watch the scene again, take it apart piece by piece with his sharingan to understand the exact sequence of events: Sakura detonates the tag, taking off the hand of the thug holding her and a sizable chunk of the candy-floss hair clenched in his fist. The other hand, holding the knife, jerks and cuts across the right hand side of her face, not deeply enough to kill but more than deep enough to do irreparable damage for someone of Kakashi’s medical ninjutsu skill.

To her credit, she doesn’t let it or the explosion phase her beyond a short bitten-off scream, but spins and drives a kunai into the thug’s chest, angling up under the ribs towards the heart.

Occupied with several other thugs as he is, Kakashi misses the exact moment at which Naruto enters the fray, but the kyuubi’s chakra is unmistakable, a heat that steals the air from one’s lungs. When all is said and done Naruto is snarling, more beast than boy, until Sakura staggers towards him, hands outstretched.

“Naruto! You’re bleeding!”

And he is, Kakashi realises, blood streaming from his left eye. The inhuman chakra of the kyuubi fades, and Naruto blinks at his teammate and eventually says, “A shard of the mirror got me when they broke.”

It’s chilling, how close two of his genin have just come to death - and then his gaze moves to the one still unmoving, riddled with senbon. With his sharingan still active, Kakashi doesn’t need to get any closer to see the ugly truth: Sasuke is dying. Sasuke is dying and there is nothing Kakashi can do about it. He feels hollow, something essential seeping out of him as he briskly inspects Naruto and Sakura’s injuries. Sakura’s wound will scar, a clean line running from the corner of her right eye back into her hairline, but the eye is a loss. Naruto’s skin is already scabbing over where the sharp edge of the mirror caught his cheekbone, but his eye, too, cannot be salvaged. Something cold clicks into place in Kakashi’s mind.

“Lay down here, both of you,” he says, pointing to the ground beside Sasuke.  
“Sensei?” asks Sakura, voice high and thin now the adrenaline is wearing off.  
“ _Now_ , Sakura,” he says, and reaches down to shake Sasuke awake for the last time.

“Sensei?” the boy slurs, tomoe spinning sluggishly in his eyes. “I--”  
“Hush,” he murmurs, a sliver of warmth creeping in for this. “Will you let this mean something?”  
Sasuke stares at him blankly, then focuses his gaze on Kakashi’s sharingan, still active, and swallows hard. “Yes,” he whispers. “Don’t let the dead-last waste it.”  
“Sasuke?” says Naruto, more attuned to the tone of the conversation than Kakashi would have given him credit for. “What are you--”  
“He’s dying,” Sakura whispers, barely audible over Sasuke’s ragged breathing. “Isn’t he?”  
“Yes,” Kakashi replies, and Sasuke murmurs it with him. “Now lie down, both of you, and let Sasuke impart his final gift.”  
“I don’t understand,” says Naruto, his eye focused on Sasuke’s, and Sasuke makes a pained noise that might have once been amusement.  
“Of course not, dobe. I’m giving you my eye. You better be grateful.”  
“I’m sorry, Sasuke-kun,” Sakura says against his shoulder as she lays down, head tipped sideways to keep her wound out of the dirt and let the blood drain away.

Naruto stares for a long, silent moment, and then lays down on Sasuke’s other side, one hand clamping around his dying teammate’s wrist.

Kakashi takes a deep breath, sets emotion aside, and goes to work.


	22. Chapter 22

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry Potter. A sort-of Peggy Sue where some of Snape's memories are sent back to him at fifteen, just before he says The Thing and alienates his one and only friend, and those memories mostly manifest as seeing people's deaths the first time he looks at them.

“Put him down!”

Severus Snape turns, mouth open, to snarl something ill-conceived and ill-fated, and--

Sees Lily, older than she is, staring sightless at the ceiling of a nursery. A baby is wailing.

\--snaps his mouth shut on the words, forcing down the sudden wash of nausea. Potter banters, Lily upbraids, and Severus wonders if he’s going mad. His gaze flits across Potter (laid out on a set of carpeted stairs, gaze empty) and Black (startled, falling backwards, a flutter of cloth), Lupin (laid out on the floor of the Great Hall, hand outstretched, as though he were just sleeping) and Pettigrew (choking for air around a silver hand). He’s unprepared when Potter drops him, yet somehow turns and lands with his weight on his forearms. He sees nothing he is not prepared for when he gets to his feet, only Potter’s smug visage that vanishes as he hastily ducks a bolt of light.

“Here, Evans, calm down!”  
“Get out of my sight, you disgusting bully!” shrieks Lily, and Potter and Black flee her hail of spellfire, Pettigrew trailing after.

“You’re brilliant,” says Severus, words falling out of his mouth before he can stop them, and ducks his head to hide the blush he can feel creeping across his cheeks.  
“I’m glad you’ve noticed,” she says lightly, a spark of amusement in her eye when he chances a glance up. “Are you alright, Sev?”  
“Yeah,” he murmurs, brushing himself down. “Thanks,” he adds, quiet but not as reluctant as he might have been to say the word only moments ago.  
“What are friends for?” she murmurs back, and tucks her hand around his elbow.


	23. Chapter 23

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry Potter. The one where Hermione enchants a pair of galleons and she and Harry use them to text each other constantly. Because texting is one of my favourite things in modern au fics, but I love the magical world too much to drop it.

The coin burns in Hermione’s pocket, and around the edge in Harry’s untidy scrawl is _oh my god I’m so bored kill me_.

_Harry James you are supposed to be concentrating_ , she spells back with a tap of her wand, and three desks down Harry turns in his chair briefly to stick his tongue out at her.

“What’re you doing?” Ron mutters beside her, not as quietly as he could have, and Hermione stuffs the coin back into her pocket.  
“Nothing,” she replies, picking her quill back up and endlessly glad it transcribes automatically whilst she’s not holding it. She scratches out the last two lines and focuses on Binns, dull as he is, because this actually _will_ be on their OWLs.

Still, distraction in class or not, she is so, so glad she thought to enchant Harry a galleon at the end of last year. None of their wizarding contemporaries can even conceive of landline telephones, let alone mobiles, but she’s heard more than one muggleborn or muggle-raised halfblood complaning about the lack at Hogwarts. Instantaneous communication is hard to leave behind, after all. Harry, of course, has no way of paying for a phone even if he could get hold of one, but the galleon means they’ve been able to spend the summer talking almost like a real conversation, rather than carefully thought out letters with days between replies. She just rather wishes he wouldn’t use it in lessons, that’s all. Not that she can really blame him _here_ ; It’s very tempting to just let her quill do all the transcription and take notes from it later, but she perseveres.

_Just take a nap, nobody will notice_ , is what the coin reads when she takes it out of her pocket when they’re dismissed.

“That’s not the point,” she says to Harry, ignoring Ron’s confused noise at her apparent non sequitur.  
“Then I’m not sure what _is_.”  
“It’s the principle of the thing.”  
“Ah,” says Harry, knowingly. “So, the same reason you’re still taking Muggle Studies even though it’s all completely worthless and, you know, _wrong_.”  
“Where’s this come from?” says Ron, entirely lost now.  
“It’s not important,” Hermione says, with a sigh, jabbing Harry in the ribs with two fingers and watching him squirm away.

Too late, she realises how dismissive her tone is; she can get away with it well enough in lessons, when she’s expected to be concentrating, but here, socially? God, she ought to have just kept her mouth shut.

“It’s a muggle thing,” Harry says, and oh, she could kiss him right now.  
“Oh,” Ron says, expression no longer the pre-cursor to an explosion. She even manages not to take offence at his dismissive tone - like most wizards, Ron considers muggle technology to be rather quaint, something of a curiosity with no real value. Well, see if she’ll make _him_ an enchanted galleon.

Not that she’s planning on handing them out to anyone else at all; Harry had needed something to keep him from going completely spare over the holidays, and she can’t think of anyone else who wouldn’t use them primarily as a means of skiving off whilst still actually being in the classroom.


End file.
